The team working on the FUSRAP Maywood Superfund Site in New Jersey in February 2023. Credit: Nayelli Guerrero, Public Affairs, New York District.
Out of sight, but not out of mind Johnson said that hazardous waste projects and this one in particu- lar has a unique danger—radiological hazards that are not visible to the naked eye. According to Kennedy, another hazard of radioactive materials is that they emit ionizing radiation, which means that a person can be exposed to radiation without even coming into contact with the material. Be- cause of this, specific precautions are being taken to protect workers through how the project is designed and through the use of personal protective equipment. The project site is designed to minimize safety hazards. This includes making sure there is ventilation in all work areas and misting water on the soils during excavation to suppress dust and contaminants from becoming airborne. In addition, zones are set up on the site to limit worker’s exposure and reduce or eliminate potential cross contamination. The Exclusion Zone is where the workers are performing the remediation work and dealing with the contaminated material, the Contamination Reduction Zone supports the workers in the Exclusion Zone, and the Support Zone supports the Reduction Zone workers and it’s where workers prepare themselves to enter the Exclusion Zone. To further limit worker exposure, workers wear personal protective equipment to protect their skin including wearing an outer layer of protective disposable clothing, hard hats, safety glasses and shields, and steel-toe safety boots. And at the end of the day, before workers leave the site, their hands, feet, and clothing are monitored using radioactive detection instru-
ments to ensure that radioactive materials are not adhered to a person before they leave the work site. Although contaminated soils were accidentally placed onto Maywood, New Jersey’s residential properties, it is no accident that the Army Corps workers who are cleaning up the community have done so without harming the residents or themselves in the process. This can be directly attributed to the safety best practices the workers perform every day that other project managers and engineers can learn from. Lorenz added, “Our team’s ability to achieve 1 million manhours with- out a lost time accident while working on a FUSRAP project is remark- able. There is constantly some sort of high-risk, high-hazard type of activity occurring. We developed, emphasized, and implemented our approach to safety from the start and have routinely engaged employ- ees so that they know they have direct involvement in the program, and its success. With these employees, we’ve been able to create, and sustain a safety culture where our people actively care for one another, and everyone is looking out for each other, to make sure we all go home at the end of the day, safely.”
Dr. JoAnne Castagna is a public affairs specialist and writer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District. She can be reached at joanne. castagna@usace.army.mil.
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June 2023 csengineermag.com
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